Giving Up Jesus

A sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation (Blacksburg, VA), March 23, 2008, by the Reverend Christine Brownlie.

“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” I’m not sure exactly how old I was when I was forever changed by a revelation, but I recall the moment and the feelings that followed. I was singing the old childhood hymn with my Sunday school classmates, and when we got to the line “Yes, Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, ...” when I thought, “No he doesn’t. He’s dead.”

I was shocked by this realization, but I also couldn’t put it aside. Gone forever was the image of a kindly Jesus who looked down from the sky and watched over me. This was the beginning of a long and often difficult search for a religious faith that I could trust and that made sense to me. I know that I’m not the only person here who has had a moment of unexpected revelation that uprooted childhood beliefs. I know that I’m not the only person who undertook a spiritual journey that challenged and changed who I was and what I believed about the man we know as Jesus.

For some of us, that search led to a new more mature understanding of who Jesus was and what his life and teachings were about: still revering this Jewish prophet and teacher and finding meaning in his story. But others of us took a different path: giving up the Jesus of our childhood and walking away, never to look back. This morning I would ask that we take another look at Jesus and discern if there is something in his story that speaks to our twenty-first century concerns. I want to do this not only because it is Easter Sunday and many of our neighbors are celebrating his resurrection, but because I believe that we cannot dismiss so easily the man and the religion that claims him as its source.

I believe we need to do this because many of us — indeed many Unitarian Universalists — hold unwarranted prejudices about Jesus and his followers. We tend to have a one-size-fits-all understanding of the beliefs of a religion called “Christianity.” For many of us, when we hear the word “Christian” we think “Right” as in “Right-wing” or “Evangelical” as in the person who knocks on you door, tract in hand, or a TV preacher who threatens hellfire and demands money so that he or she can live high on the hog. These images are caricatures at best, and in my experience they can blossom into out-and-out bigotry. So on this Easter Sunday, I’d like to put them in the tomb and seal it tight with no hope of resurrection.

This won’t be easy, and for some of us it’s going to require a courageous attitude of forgiveness. I know that some of you have had some painful experiences with overly zealous or judgmental Christians. I too have run across some pretty small-minded, people with crosses around their necks or pinned to their lapels who left me reeling with their harsh words. My sons, who were raised in Fort Worth Texas, frequently came home from school feeling stung by the hurtful comments and taunts from their Christian classmates. And on one or two occasions, I had to use the magic letters ACLU to motivate the Superintendent of the School District to rein in a teacher who used class time to share personal beliefs. I know what goes on and how it can hurt.

I’m also aware that the liturgy and rituals of the Christian church can damage the human heart and spirit. I was fortunate to grow up in Protestant congregations that emphasized divine love and forgiveness. The memories that I carry of my early church experiences are warm and positive. But not everyone is so fortunate. I’ve listened to people who remember terrifying Bible tales of God’s wrath and punishment. This particular week in the church year is filled with images of guilt and shame. In some congregations, worshipers will hear that their own sins were the cause of Jesus’ agony and suffering. They will repeat the words “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy” again and again in the hope that their petitions will save them from judgment and eternal torment. Some of you may carry these hurtful memories with you still, and this discussion of Jesus may be a reminder of this hurt.

For some of us, the stories of miracles and unexplainable events that color Jesus’ life are simply not believable in our world. Like our Unitarian forbearers, we scoff at the Biblical stories of healings, the resurrections, and the other accounts of miraculous events. The idea of a God who dwells just above our planet, observing the doings of human beings and responding with rewards and punishments doesn’t hold up in the face of modern knowledge about the universe. Our sense of moral law will not allow us to believe in the traditional creeds and doctrines that divide humanity into the saved and the unsaved, with eternal happiness promised to the first group and eternal misery to the latter group.

Whatever our reasons, we find that we can’t separate the claims about Jesus from the man himself, and so we reject the whole package. Jesus is just one more discarded fantasy figure from our childhood

I don’t think that the Jesus of history would have appreciated or approved of many of the beliefs, doctrines, or creeds that are proclaimed by the Christian Church today. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I do believe that there was a Jewish man who lived early in the first century who was an imaginative teacher and a charismatic prophet whose bold pronouncements caused both the religious and secular authorities to conspire to kill him in a way that would make his words and deeds too dangerous to repeat let alone remember. And I believe that his message, if taken seriously and lived out, would transform our world.

In Jesus time, as in our own, tribalism was a powerful social force. For the Jewish community, that sense of tribe included a claim that the Jews had a special status as the chosen people who had a unique covenant with their God. This covenant required that the Jewish community adhere to a strict set of laws that essentially kept them apart from all non-Jews, or Gentiles. The non-Jews worshiped their own gods and kept their own customs.

Some of these laws were concerned with the various ways that a person could become “unclean” and how to restore the state of purity. Human beings could be designated as unclean for a variety of reasons: contact with blood, semen, or unclean foods, certain sexual acts, contact with other people who were unclean due to disease or other physical conditions, contact with dead bodies, or offering a sacrifice to a “demon.” The list is long and detailed and very complex. The law became more complex as the Jewish community was driven into exile in Egypt and later in Babylon and later still struggled under Roman rule.

The temptation to take up the customs of the majority must have been extraordinary. The fence between the people of “the one true God” and the rest of the world had to be reinforced so that the “chosen ones” would keep their identity and the favor of their God.

In his newest book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, Bishop John Shelby Spong claims that the effect of the law and especially the purity codes was to keep the community small and tightly controlled. The pervasive concern for maintaining purity, distorted the peoples’ ability to relate to one another — even in time of urgent need. Recall the parable of the Good Samaritan from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus tells this story as an answer to the question "Who is my neighbor?” or “Who does God expect me to love and care for?” The merchant who has been beaten nearly to death lies in the road and the first two men who come by — a priest and a Levite — do not stop to help him. Why? Not because they are heartless and indifferent. No, both the priest and Levite are bound by the holiness codes that make them unclean should they come into contact with a dead body. If they should become unclean, then they must go through a process of ritual cleansing. If we suppose that these men may have been on their way to perform some religious duty, we might understand their dilemma. It is the Samaritan, a person who is rejected by the Jewish people because he is impure, who comes to the man’s rescue and saves his life. Those who heard this story must have been stunned when Jesus made a hero of the person who was clearly outside of the boundaries of the community, the person who was an enemy of the tribe,

This radical challenge to the tightly held ideas of who is in and who is out, who is acceptable in the sight of the community and its God and who is not, runs throughout the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, in the Book of Acts, and in many of the letters to the early Christian communities. Spong claims that the meaning of what he calls the “Jesus experience” was the challenge that Jesus posed to his Jewish brothers and sisters to re-examine their tribal mentality that stunted their understanding of what it means to be human. Spong says that Jesus encouraged the Jews to push past their “survival mentality” and “security systems” and to “open their hearts and minds and social structures to a new humanity unbounded by the walls of protectionism.”

This new understanding of what it truly meant to be human, changed social relationship. But it also reshaped the individual’s understanding of who he or she might become by letting go of the boundaries and fears that were imposed by the old understanding of society and of God. Spong says that this new view of Jesus’ life and teachings has had a profound effect on his life, his understanding of Jesus, and his concept of God.

“When I look at this Jesus, I no longer see God in human form. This to me is now a very inadequate, theistic understanding of what divinity means. . . . I rather look at Jesus and see a humanity open to all that God is — open to life, open to love and open to being.”

This interpretation offers us a Jesus who is fully human and who opens us to a new sense of the potential of fullness of humanity that is given to each of us and to every person we meet. In this context, sin is not a violation of a law, but a missing of the mark of our potential for love, compassion, service to others, and the sharing the goodness of life with those who struggle.

Isn’t that what we want in this time of materialism, uncertainty, and fear? I know that I do. I long to break through the barriers that keep me from a fuller relationship with people who are outside my own definitions of who is acceptable or even worthy of the name “human.” I know that I have not developed my capacity for love and acceptance to the fullest potential. And I know that I am sometimes unable to set aside my pride and open my heart to the love and kindness that people around me want to share. I’m afraid of seeming weak or incompetent, of being less that I should be. What I’ve come to realize is that my fears and judgments, my assumptions and my prejudices, harm both the “other” and me by diminishing our full humanity and our human needs.

Little by little over the years, I have let go of the Jesus in the sky who loves me if I’m a good girl and obey the rules so that I can be with him in Heaven. The Jesus of my childhood was impossible to follow or truly love, because I believed that he required me to be perfect. I have given up this Jesus. The Jesus that I try to follow now, calls me to be bold in my dreams of justice and the potential of humanity to create a society that respects and nurtures the indwelling goodness of every person. The Jesus I love now, challenges me to become whole — wholly human, loving, and longing for relationships that break down the artificial walls of race and class and age and gender, allowing us to know each other and to be known for who we truly are. This Jesus doesn’t ask me to be perfect; he asks me to be real.

It was a relief to give up the Jesus of my early years. It has taken me decades to come to a more mature understanding of this man and his message. I offer you this interpretation in the spirit of Easter: new life, new hope, and new possibilities. I hope that this new view will lead you to a new understanding of this Jewish prophet and his message, and perhaps a new understanding of yourself as well.

May it be so.